Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Cases

The American public service television channel, C-Span, has just completed a series entitled Landmark Cases in which 12 of the most important cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court are presented - starting with Marbury v. Madison (1803) and ending with Roe v. Wade (1973). The each case is presented through a video (1h 30 min), and each web page has links to the decisions themselves, plus the recordings of oral arguments when available. No transcript but C-Span has produced a 120 page book to accompany the series.

Dred Scott - 1857 The Dred Scott decision is often considered the worst ever made by the U.S. Supreme Court. 2007 is the 150th anniversary of this infamous case. NPR’s program On Point of August 20 examines the case with Stephen Breyer, Justice of the Supreme Court, and two law professors, Charles Ogletree and John McGinnis. The discussion goes from a presentation of the old case to the current problem of the rights of illegal immigrants. The hour long program is available in Windows Media Player, RealAudio, or as a .mp3 download. No script. Harvard Law School organised a two day conference discussing the case on April 6-7 of this year. You can find the website here, with RealAudio webcasts (videos).